


Red Tulips

by lostin_space



Category: Druck | SKAM (Germany)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, implied/referenced suicidal ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 11:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19198351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostin_space/pseuds/lostin_space
Summary: a flower shop au in which david meets a boy who makes him want to come out of his shell





	Red Tulips

“Hi, welcome to Schreiber’s Flowers.”

David didn’t look up from his sketchbook even as he greeted whoever had walked through the door and made the bell ring throughout the small shop.  It had been a slow day and, with 30 minutes left, he was ready to go ahead and close up shop.  However, Laura would yell at him for the rest of his life if he closed early.  What was the point of owning your own store if you can’t close whenever the hell you want?

“Mom’s like flowers, right?” The voice startled David and he looked up to see a boy standing quite close despite being on the other side of the counter.  His bangs hung in front of his eyes as he leaned his elbows on the glass countertop, the tip of his tongue peeking out from his lips as he traced his teeth.

David thought of every slow-motion, heart-stopping, head-spinning scene in every romance movie or show or novel and how he’d always assumed they were stupid.  And, honestly, they were stupid.  Incredibly stupid.  But suddenly this guy was in front of him and his body temperature rose and he almost forgot he had a job to do.   

“Um, yeah, I’d say so,” David responded after an embarrassingly long time.  The guy flashed a lopsided grin, sinking further onto the counter until he was gazing up at David through his hair.  He was easily the cutest guy he’d seen all week.  When he smiled, he definitely might be the cutest all year.  Bless whoever sent him his way.

“It’s your job to say so.”

“Maybe,” David mused, crossing his arms as he leaned forward and gave the guy a little smirk.  He smiled wider.

“I missed her call last week and didn’t call her back and she’s still mad at me.  Got any special flowers for that occasion?” he asked.  David bit down on his lip as he scanned his face, pretending like he actually thought about it.

“Depends on how much you wanna spend.”

“Not much.”

David smiled, “Okay.”

They spent the next twenty or so minutes walking around the shop, talking aimlessly about flowers.  David was more than a little sure that the guy had no idea what he was talking about, but he nodded like he got it.   He smiled sweetly and offered up comments that might pass for witty if David wanted to stretch enough to give him credit.  He did.

The guy ended up settling on three yellow Asiatic lilies without much extra filler in an attempt to keep the price down.  They still looked pretty and, after David wrapped them up, they were big enough to give the illusion that it might’ve been more expensive than they actually were.  David leaned his elbows on the countertop and the guy mimicked.  His heart thudded harder in his chest when he realized that the flowers were the main thing separating their arms from touching.

“You wanna write a note?” David asked.  The guy grinned, nodding his head and his hair covering more of his face.  David found it hard to take his eyes off of him when he dug beneath the register for a slip of paper and a pen.  He slid it over to him, his stomach tightening when their knuckles grazed.

The guy sat there for a moment, leaning over it and not writing a damn thing before looking up at David with those painfully blue eyes, “What do I write?”  David laughed.

“Something simple.  Maybe a ‘please don’t disown me’ might work,” David suggested, the guy before him snorting.  He really needed to get his name.  Or his number.  Both, preferably.

“You, sir, are a genius,” he said, pointing the pen at him before crouching back over the paper.  Something in David’s chest bloomed, heat making its way through his veins and lighting every inch of him on fire.  What the fuck was this.  The guy’s eyes peeked up through his hair again, “You wouldn’t happen to have good handwriting, would you?”

David rolled his eyes as he took the pen from the guy’s hand, “You know, I should just say from it’s from the both of us since I’m doing all the work here.”

“Maybe so. What’s your name?” The guy’s tongue pressed to the back of his teeth and David felt lightheaded.

“David,” he answered, pausing to let his eyes skim over him once again, “and you?”

The guy pushed up on his toes, leaning closer, “Matteo.”

 _Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo, Matteo._   The name danced around his mind like it was playing a game, teasing him with the idea that he’d see him after he left the shop. David barely left the flower shop as it was and he lived above it so it wasn’t even like he had the excuse of walking home to seek him out.  Instead, he had to wonder if he really should just ask for his number or if he should just let him walk away.

“Here you go,” David said as he tucked the note into the flowers.  He had to let him walk away.  That was his only real option.

David rung him up and tried to avoid staring at him anymore.  That made it a fuckton harder to let him leave without asking to see him again.  However, he knew that’s the way it had to be.  David didn’t have much to offer.  He lived with his sister, worked in his sister’s shop, was too scared to leave the house.  He wasn’t inherently social or charming or anything special.  He was virtually a hermit.

Matteo, on the other hand, had a smile to light the world and was charming and he carried himself with a confident swagger that screamed ‘I don’t give a fuck what you think about me’.  He had books protruding out of his unzipped back that he’d dropped before the front desk, one of which being a biology textbook which meant he was in college and had dreams about life.  His phone had buzzed multiple times since he’d walked in, saying he had friends and probably went out.  Hell, he’d even been the one to ask for David’s name.  He probably wanted someone just as outgoing.

He probably wasn’t even into guys.

“Thanks,” Matteo said as he eventually started heading towards the door, though he walked backward and basically forced David to hold his gaze with some sort of authority he couldn’t say no to, “ _David_.”

Matteo stepped out of the flower shop with a grin, spinning around to the soft ding of the bell.  David collapsed into his chair, his head thrown back as his body turned to mush.  What gave him the right to say his name like that?  It made his head spin.  He’d heard the name David come out of a million different people, his own included, and yet none of them sounded so perfect.  None of them had sounded like it was specially crafted to fit into someone mouth like it did with Matteo.

“David, are you okay down there?  We do close at 5, you know!” Laura suddenly called from the stairway that led to their apartment, shaking him from his Matteo-induced daze.  He glanced over at the clock, the big hand and the little hand forming an unmistakable 5:30.

Whoops.

*

David thought he’d died and gone to heaven when Matteo walked in the next day.

Caught off guard and more than a little flustered, David just barely croaked out a, “hey.”  Matteo licked his lips and grinned as he walked confidently up to the counter again, leaning against it on his elbows.

“Hey yourself.”

David couldn’t think of what to say or do.  He’d thought about this stupid guy since the moment he saw him the day prior.  He could barely hold a conversation at dinner with Matteo on the brain and he couldn’t even  _think_  about the dreams he’d had without blushing.  He had tried to push the thought of him away when he’d woken up, but it had only started to work whenever he got back from his lunch break.

That didn’t last long.

Matteo’s tongue prodded the inside of his cheek before swiping across his bottom lip, disappearing behind a large lopsided smile and a huffed laugh.  Cue the dizziness.

“So, my mom really liked those flowers. Thanks,” he said. David blinked.  “Any chance you know anything about the language of flowers?”

“Uh,” he paused, desperately trying to clear his head enough to have a conversation.  He could feel his cheeks getting redder and redder by the minute and he wanted to burst of embarrassment.  Matteo only seemed to smile through it.  “A little.”

Matteo sunk down, his chin resting on his hands that pressed flat against the counter.  He gazed up through his hair and David’s fingers twitched, desperate to push his bangs aside to get a real view of those eyes.  He didn’t, obviously, deciding to just stare at them and only them, definitely not Matteo’s slightly pursed lips that were too perfect to be real.

“Teach me?”

Fuck.

*

Every day for the next two weeks, Matteo would turn up around thirty minutes before closing and would stay a little later each day.  David was getting a little addicted to his company, spending every moment without him giddy for when he’d turn up next.  He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d had a friend, much less a friend that looked like  _that_ , and he was loving every minute of it.

While they had definitely drifted to talking about everything under the sun, they’d gone back to the topic of the language of flowers every once in a while. Matteo thought it was spectacularly funny that they had a whole section of flowers dedicated for rejection and David had done more research than he’d done in his life specifically to tell him more, to get him to laugh more.  Aside from that, he’d seemed especially fascinated with the flowers that stood for love, unspoken love, absolute affection, devotion. He said it was sweet that they managed to say so much with so little. David had told him his favorite was the red tulip.

“It’s basically like saying, ‘believe me when I say I love’. It could be for any occasion. Like, if someone was going away forever, they could send that as a final sacrament of their love,” David had explained as they sat on the floor of the flower shop, the doors locked for the night and their backs against the front desk.  Their shoulders were touching and it had David soaring.

“That’s really dramatic,” Matteo had teased, “I think you should be able to say that without a big ending. You should make sure the person you love knows that you love them every day of the week.”  David remembered turning to face him and discovering their faces were just a few inches apart.  Of all the times he’d thought about kissing him, that was the time he regretted the most that he didn’t.   _Next time I see him,_  he promised himself.

That was four days ago.

“Your little friend coming today?” Laura asked teasingly as David got ready for work, taking extra time to make sure his hair looked presentable.  Matteo never really went out of his way to look put together, but he pulled off the sloppy look better than anyone in the whole world so David didn’t expect him to change that.  But that didn’t mean he was going to try to do the same.

“Stop,” David groaned, but he couldn’t hide the smile on his face.  He’d worked up the courage since he left the night before after spending nearly three hours laying the floor together and talk about anything and everything.  Matteo had even opened up to him about his father leaving him and his mother a few years back without much of a warning, fucking off to Italy and only talking when Matteo called him first.  David felt bad for him, but he felt special that he got to know something so personal.  

That personal admission had prompted David to share something personal of his own‒his sketchbook.  Matteo had flipped through it for an hour, trying his best to give artistic comments.  He mainly stuck with waxing poetic on how talented he was.

Sometime during that, Matteo’s hand had grazed his own.  It had made his whole body tense, head to toe, and he’d stared at him like he was choking him.  In a way, he sort of was because he decided not to move his hand away.  It was almost like it was intentional.

“When are you going to ask him out?” Laura asked, ignoring his pleas for her to drop it.  The moment she’d discovered the reason he was staying late was because of a guy, she wouldn’t stop teasing him.  David guessed it was his fault for being completely isolated for two years, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

“I’m not.”

“David!  He really likes you!” Laura said and David snorted in disbelief.  Where the hell did she get that from?  “Oh, so you’re telling me this guy goes out of his way to come spend hours of time with you  _every single day,_  but he doesn’t like you?”

“I don’t think he’s into guys.”

“David,” she said, coming up behind him in the mirror and resting her chin on his shoulder, “To me, it sounds like he’s more than into you.  He’s probably thinking  _you_  aren’t into him.  He’s been reaching out for two weeks.  Reach out to him.  Don’t let what your brain is saying keep you from him. You’re allowed to have someone and be loved, no matter what happened to you in the past.”

David mulled over her words as she smiled, patting him on the back and heading down to open up shop.  He stared at himself in the mirror, wondering if maybe she was right.  Maybe Matteo was just waiting for him to make a move.  Maybe the hand touching, the handful of close-enough-to-be-kisses, and the constant hanging out was him saying he was interested.  David had a hard fucking time understanding why someone like Matteo would be even kind of interested in him, but… maybe it was worth figuring out.  And maybe, just maybe, if he wasn’t into him like that, he’d still come out of it with a friend.

So, today, for the first time in years, he was going to put himself on the line.  For Matteo.

But then he didn’t show.

David stared at the door until well after they closed up, each minute that passed crushing his hopes a little more.  That was it, it had to be a sign.  The day that he was going to grow a pair and ask Matteo out, he didn’t show.  He’d probably gotten tired of him, tired of talking to someone who didn’t have any stories outside of high school and the TV shows he watched. He bored him to death until he didn’t want to see him anymore.  Go fucking figure.

That night, David didn’t sleep much.  He was too busy trying to figure out if he’d done something wrong the night before or if he really was that boring.  For hours, he ridiculed himself for waiting too long, for wasting time and ruining his chances.  A guy like Matteo wasn’t just going to wait around forever, especially when David didn’t even fucking leave the house.  He was pathetic.

The next morning, David didn’t bother making himself look nice.  He let his hair look hardly tame and decided to just wear his sweats.  It’s not like anyone would see it.  Not anyone important that is.

David trudged down the steps and opened up shop with the same level of gravitas.  It wasn’t until he unlocked the door and flipped around the sign that he noticed a note taped to the glass.  He blinked in confusion a few times before deciding to grab it off the door.  When he looked at it, he nearly stopped breathing.

_Things came up, I promise to explain xx_

Beneath the messy handwriting was a sloppily drawn flower, the petals colored in haphazardly with a red pen.  Beside it read ‘ _tulip_ ’ with an arrow pointing towards it.  A red tulip.

David ran right back upstairs to fix his hair.

*

“So your mom’s going to be okay and everything, right?”

David watched as Matteo gave a tired smile and nodded.  Apparently, something had gone wrong and his mother had ended up in the hospital.  He said he managed to slip away for a bit around 3 in the morning which is when he’d left the note.  Currently, he was just supposed to go home to take a shower before heading back, but he wanted to stop by to say he didn’t mean to leave him hanging.  David’s hopes were higher than ever.

“Uh, yeah, yeah.  They’re keeping her for observation,” Matteo said.  His voice was soft and he was mostly avoiding eye contact.  As special as David felt, he also hated to keep him away.  He didn’t know exactly what was going on with his mom, but he wasn’t about to be the reason he wasn’t with her.

“Well, don’t let me keep you,” David insisted.  He wanted to ask him out and he definitely planned to do so, but now was a bad time.  Actually, now was the  _worst_  time.  So he decided against it.

“You’re fine, seriously, I wanna be here.  I can waste a few minutes if they’re for you,” Matteo said and as tired as he looked, he still came off ungodly charming.  That familiar feeling that came with Matteo’s presence burst into his chest without much warning.  David smiled, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt.  “I really like talking to you.”

David smiled softly, “Me too.”

“Do you think… do you think I could get your number?” Matteo asked.  It was the shyest he’d ever seen him in all the time he’d known him.  He almost always had this air of confidence around him even when he said the dumbest shit in the world, but not today.  Maybe he was tired or stressed, or maybe David actually had the power to make someone nervous.

It seemed unlikely.

“Y-yeah, absolutely!” he answered almost immediately and proceeded to mentally kick himself for sounding way too eager.  Matteo’s smile subdued the embarrassment.

Matteo didn’t stay much longer, but he texted him the minute he walked out.  David was satisfied.

*

_Matteo: Do you want to come over tonight?_

David stared at the phone for so long he was wondering if he should even reply.  Granted, the message had been sent sometime between David going to sleep and waking up, but he still had seen it for a long time.  Matteo probably thought he was ignoring him.

The two of them had been texting on and off for over a week every minute they weren’t together. He couldn’t leave his phone alone when it lit up with his name and he stayed up ridiculously late every night for him.  A few nights, they’d called and talked until they both fell asleep on the phone.  David felt like a teenager all over again and he was crushing like one.  He didn’t want to admit how many doodles he had of Matteo in his sketchbook and even on the pages that  _weren’t_  of him, his name was written in the corners covered in hearts.

The only problem is that he had no idea how Matteo was feeling and he didn’t know how to take the proposition of going to his house.

“Laura,” David said as he stepped into the flower shop, “I need help.”

He hated asking her any of her opinions on the Matteo situation, but he was feeling desperate and he didn’t know anyone else.  So he placed his phone in front of her and waited for her to tell him what to do.

“Oh my god!  Say yes!” Laura pressured, “You finally have a good excuse to go somewhere!”

“But what does it  _mean_?”

“Does it matter?”

Okay, valid point.

“But what if… What if he wants to, like, hook up?  What do I say?  He’s gonna notice that‒” David tried, subconsciously pulling his sleeves over the heels of his hands.  Laura grabbed his hands gently, looking into his eyes.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, but if he  _does_  and you  _do_ , then just tell him.  There’s no harm done, not if he really likes you,” she promised.  David took a deep breath as he tried to accept what she was saying.

There was a chance that Matteo really liked him.  He was so tired of not taking risks. Matteo was the one to take.  

_David: sure what time?_

*

“It’s not much, but…”

David let his eyes look around the small apartment, his fingers tapping against his leg anxiously.  It exuded Matteo.  It was vaguely cluttered, not messy, just lived in.  It was homey and welcoming and it helped subdue his nerves. Well, helped a little.  It was the first time he’d gone anywhere aside from the little grocery store next to the flower shop in over a year and it had to be where he was alone with a boy.  That was the most stressful shit ever.

Nonetheless, he powered through and Matteo led him to his room.  A few words were shared here and there before Matteo eventually just handed him a Switch controller and gave him something far less stressful to focus on.  Turns out, hanging out with a friend can be fun.

“So, where’s your mom?” David asked after a few hours of going back and forth winning games of Mario Kart.  Matteo licked his lips, his eyes on the floor.  It took less than a few seconds for David to realize he fucked up and that he really should’ve noticed that Matteo had been smiling a lot less frequently in the last week.  “Sorry, I shouldn’t‒”

“She’s in the hospital,” Matteo answered simply, reaching over to put his controller on the desk in the corner.  David chewed on his bottom lip, too scared to say anything.  He’d come to hang out and be enjoyable and he fucked it up by upsetting him.  He was already upset and David had barely even noticed, too wrapped up in his stupid little crush and his own issues.  How was he supposed to have a crush on someone when he couldn’t even pay enough attention to their feelings?  “A psychiatric hospital.”

David nodded slowly, not knowing what to say that wouldn’t make it worse.  He didn’t want to ask questions, he didn’t want to put himself where he didn’t belong.  He just wanted to be there for Matteo.

“She was in and out of there my whole fucking childhood.  I thought she was good now though, you know?  Like, she hasn’t been bad since my dad left and, and I make sure she takes her medicine and goes to therapy.  But I-I left her alone for too long, I think, and before I knew it, I was getting a call saying she’d fucking cut her wrists open. I should’ve been watching her,” Matteo said, his voice slowly becoming thick with tears.  David felt sick.  He was the reason Matteo hadn’t been home as much.  He was the reason he felt so guilty.  It being over something like this made him feel even worse.

David put his hand on his knee.

“It’s not your fault.  Those things… they just happen. It’s no one’s fault. It’s not hers, it’s not yours. Sometimes things just get bad and all you can think is that… it needs to stop,” David said softly.  He knew the feeling too well, too personally.  He had spent so long pushing them away, but he knew even the slightest worrying change could make it all come back.  He wondered if Matteo’s mom felt the same way.

“I know.  Really, logically, I  _know_ , but… can’t help but feel like I pushed it somehow,” Matteo whispered, sniffling.  David took a chance and moved his arm to wrap around his shoulders.  In a second, Matteo’s head hit his shoulder.

“I wish I could make you feel better.”

They fell silent, Matteo’s hand reaching out to David’s spare one.  His heart thudded in his chest for more than one reason as Matteo played with his hand, his sleeve riding up just enough to cause panic.  However, he managed to stay calm for Matteo because he needed it and let him trace over his fingers and his palms as rogue tears slipped into the fabric of his sweater.

“You wanna make me feel better?” Matteo asked after a while.  David let the sentence hang in the air for a moment, slightly scared of what was going to come next.  Eventually, he decided it was worth it.

“I’d do anything.”

Before he could even close his mouth all the way after speaking, Matteo’s lips were on his own.  David squeaked a noise of surprise, his hands shooting up as Matteo continued to kiss him.  So much of him wanted to kiss back, to enjoy this moment, he couldn’t do it.  Not when he understood.

“Stop,” David managed to say, very gently pushing him away even as he allowed their foreheads to rest against each other.  Matteo’s eyes frantically searched his face, his lips folded between his teeth as tears brimmed his eyes again.

“I thought you said anything.”

“Not… not that.  Not when you’re upset. I don’t wanna kiss you when you’re like this, I’d be taking advantage,” David whispered, trying to soothe him before he got the wrong idea.  It seemed it was too late though  

“Then get out,” Matteo decided, pushing him away.  David blinked a few times and told himself not to take it personally.

“Matteo, I‒”

“I said get out.”

“Look, I understand you’re upset, but I think‒”

“What don’t you understand about get out?!  Clearly, I shouldn’t have even asked you over, you don’t understand when to fucking leave!  No wonder you stay holed up in the stupid fucking shop!” David couldn’t find any words.  “Yeah, I fucking know that you never leave!  What’s wrong with you anyway?  Are you fucked up too?”

David’s mouth went dry, “I‒”

Matteo shook his head, pushing him away even more as he tacked on a, “No, don’t tell me, I really don’t care.  Just get the fuck out of my house.”

David stood without another word and headed towards the door.  He knew he was upset, he knew he didn’t  _really_  mean anything he’d said, but it still hurt.  No matter how much he tried to make sure he didn’t take it to heart, it was too accurate to ignore.  He  _was_  fucked up.  Not even three years ago he’d been exactly where Matteo’s mom was and now it was hard to even step outside the house in fear he’d be right back where he was.  That was as fucked up as it got, wasn’t it?

His hand had just reached for the door to the apartment when he was stopped.

“Wait,” Matteo called, much softer than it had been less than a minute prior.  David reluctantly glanced over his shoulder to see Matteo standing in the hallway, looking weaker than he ever had.  And to think he had originally thought Matteo had nothing but confidence.  “What were you gonna say?”  David furrowed his eyebrows.

“When?”

“I asked…” Matteo trailed off, his eyes shifting towards the floor and his socked foot rubbed over the other one.  David gulped, taking his hand off the doorknob.

“Yeah, I’m fucked up too, we all are. You already pointed out I don’t leave the shop,” David said, admittedly sounding colder than he should’ve.  He knew Matteo was just acting out.  He hadn’t been on Matteo’s side of the equation, he didn’t know what it felt like to be raised by someone who couldn’t be trusted with their own life.  He just didn’t know.

“Why?”

David sighed, “Because when I leave, I’m too aware of bad shit that happens in the world and when I become too aware of that then I… want to do something stupid again.” David regretted it as soon as it said it.  He didn’t like to talk about what had happened.  He barely liked to think about it.  The whole situation was embarrassing.  Who reacts to graduating high school by trying to kill themselves?  He should’ve been happy for a new start, but he couldn’t be like that.  He found too much negative in positive things.

Except for Matteo.

“No,” Matteo said, though his face was heavy with the meaning of David’s admission, “Why’d you leave for me?”

Just like that, some of the tension that had been building in his body since he’d gotten that stupid text began to drain.  David leaned his back against the door, staring at Matteo who seemed more and more gutted by the minute.

“Because I really, really like you. I don’t think I’ve ever liked someone as much as I like you.  When you asked me to come over, I was barely even scared to leave, I was more scared for you to find out that I’ve got issues,” David admitted.  Matteo bit down his lip, nodding his head.  After a few too many minutes of silence, he decided that he should go.

“Wait,” Matteo repeated just as he went to turn the knob.  He sighed but waited anyway.  “I’m sorry that I ruined our first kiss.”

David’s forehead hit the door.

“Please don’t walk out that door.  I’m sorry.”

David was more than a little reluctant as he obeyed.  He needed to cool down and clear his head, but he didn’t want to leave Matteo alone.  That’s what everything seemed to point to.  He didn’t want to be alone.  That was a side of things David did understand, he understood it so goddamn well.  He wasn’t about to do that Matteo.

Within the next hour, David found himself lying in bed with Matteo tightly wrapped up in his arms.  Turns out cuddling is better medicine than laughter.  He felt relaxed for the first time in a long time and he was forcing himself to let it happen.  Too many times he’d let bad thoughts ruin good things.  He wasn’t about to let it ruin things with Matteo.

Sure, they needed to talk.  They needed to discuss a few important things and patch up a few hurtful things that had happened that night, but overall it felt like the start of something good.  Things were going to go better.  He could feel it.

A few days later, David found a real red tulip taped to the door of the flower shop even though they still had a couple weeks before they were officially in season.  It came with a note.

_Believe me when I say…_

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr: spaceskam


End file.
